Erik is a baseball fan who has been attending baseball games and snagging baseballs regularly since 2008.

6-8-11 PNC Park

After a dismal two ball day yesterday, things got off to a much better start. I snagged two balls within the first fifteen seconds today. That’s right, it took a full BP to get just two yesterday.

Upon running in, there were several fans already in the stands for a season ticket holder batting practice viewing event. They were near the bullpen, so I ran towards the foul pole, where I found ball #1 in the third row back. Also, a home run landed near the foul pole as I entered the bleachers and was picked up by a Pirates season ticket representative. He tossed it to me for ball #2.

My third ball was glove tricked directly behind the left field foul pole after the Diamondbacks came out to hit.

(By the way, the Pirates ran off the field at 5:05. Perhaps at 90 degrees it was too hot to take a full BP?)

By the way, the entire first group of Diamondbacks were ALL left handed, so there was virtually no chance of any batted balls landing in left field. Rather than go over and play the Riverwalk for deep home runs, I elected to stay in left field and hope for a toss up. It paid off as Josh Collmenter tossed me ball #4 of the day.

I had planned on running over to right field as four home runs landed there during the Diamondbacks first group, but I watched as the ushers systematically scanned each and every row and picked up all four. So, figuring that there wasn’t much to be found in right, I ran over to foul territory to see if a foul ball that had been hit earlier in batting practice was still there.

It paid off as I found ball #5 in the handicapped section in foul territory. As I was leaving to return to the right field bleachers, a batter hit a foul ball into the upper seats. I simply turned around to go claim it. I had seen where the ball landed, but I couldn’t find it. Two other ballhawks started to come over to look and claim it for themselves, so I pulled some trickery and bent down as if I had found it, and stood back up holding the previous ball that I had found. This bought me another minute or two, as the other ballhawks went back to their spots along front row in foul territory. Eventually, I found the ball, it had rolled the whole way down to row A in section 130. It was ball #6.

Back in left field, there wasn’t much action to be had. I went the next twenty five minutes without anything until Xavier Nady hit a ground rule double that I snagged here:

The entire batting practice there were three home runs to left field. That’s it. It didn’t help that the Diamondbacks were being frugal and were tossing up precious few baseballs. Nick Pelescak capped off batting practice by shouting at the Diamondbacks as they ran off the field, “You’re all a bunch of cheapskates!”

The D’Backs BP has been the worst I’ve seen this year. One more game with them this year on Thursday, and then the Mets come into town for 4. Hopefully the weather will cooperate.

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